68 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
bounty. Such, however, was the melancholy fact. 
Although 
--- u the soil untill’d 
Pour’d forth spontaneous and abundant harvests, 
The forests cast their fruits, in husks or rind, 
Yielding sweet kernels or delicious pulp, 
Smooth oil, cool milk, and unfermented wine, 
In rich and exquisite variety; 
On these the indolent inhabitants 
Fed without care or forethought.” 
We have often endeavoured to learn from the 
natives whether the vegetable productions used 
as food when the islands were discovered by 
Captain Wallis, were found there by those who 
first peopled them ; whether these colonists, from 
whatsoever country they may have come, had 
brought any seeds or roots with them ; or whether 
they had been, at a more recent period, conveyed 
thither from any other islands : but their answers, 
with regard to the origin of most of them, have 
been so absurd and fabulous, that no correct in¬ 
ference can be drawn from them. Most of them 
are, in their traditions, stated to have been formed 
by their gods, at the same time that the fishes of 
the sea, the fowls of the air, and the inhabitants 
of the earth, were produced. 
In reference to the origin of the bread-fruit, one 
of their traditionary legends states, that in the 
reign of a certain king, when the people ate araea , 
red earth, a husband and wife had an only son, 
whom they tenderly loved. The youth was weak 
and delicate ; and one day the husband said to the 
wife, “ I compassionate our son, he is unable to 
eat the red earth. I will die, and become food 
for our son.” The wife said, “ How will you be¬ 
come food ?.” He answered, if I will pray to my 
